Braves pitcher Julio Teheran will probably be one of the first players to attest that spring training stats are largely irrelevant. After posting a 1.04 ERA over six Grapefruit League starts, Teheran flopped in his regular-season debut Saturday against the Cubs and was charged with five runs in five innings.
Two of the eights hits he surrendered were homers as the hard-throwing righty struggled to carry over his refined arsenal of pitches from the spring, which includes improved breaking balls.
"He had a really good spring, but that's still his first outing under the lights," Braves catcher Gerald Laird told MLB.com. "He wants to make a good impression. Sometimes, you can try to do too much. But for the most part, I thought he threw the ball fine. I thought he just made some mistakes. He left some pitches up and those are the balls they hit hard."